Two upcoming comic book franchise reboots – one about a blind-warrior with “sonar vision,” the other about mutated reptiles with mad martial arts skills – have just taken another step forward. 20th Century Fox has hired a screenwriter to pen its new Daredevil movie, while Paramount has selected a new writing duo to tackle scripting duties on its Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot.

Daredevil is the reboot that fans have been expecting to hear about sooner than later, since director David Slade​ promised some official news was on the horizon about a week and a half ago. Better late than never, though.

Heat Vision says that Fox has brought on writer Brad Caleb Kane to script Slade’s new cinematic project about The Man Without Fear, who was previously brought to life onscreen by Ben Affleck in 2003. Kane served as a consulting producer on Starz’ Crash TV series; he is also a co-producer on Fringe and scripted three episodes in the first season, including “The Cure” and “The No-Brainer”. He’s also known as the singing voice of Disney’s Aladdin – and played Lanny in Starship Troopers. Take all that as you will.

THR also indicates that Kane will be adapting Frank Miller’s famous “Born Again” Daredevil story arc, which was previously rumored to be the basis for Slade’s franchise relaunching. Miller’s seven-issue work was released back in 1986 and revolves around the efforts of Wilson “The Kingpin” Fisk (previously played by Michael Clarke Duncan​) to systematically destroy Matt Murdock​’s life – after discovering that he and Daredevil are the same person.

Using “Born Again” for the new Daredevil is an interesting move; the storyline could technically work as a sequel to the 2003 movie, which concluded with Fisk discovering the masked hero’s true identity and promising to destroy Murdock once he escaped from prison. Slade has said before that his film “will bare no relation to the previous Daredevil movie in any way” – so that presumably means the new movie is going to break away completely from the continuity of its predecessor.

Given Slade’s background as a director (Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night), he seems well-positioned to deliver a Daredevil film that is as grimly serious and gritty as many fans wanted the theatrical cut of the 2003 movie to be. He even managed to make the third Twilight movie, Eclipse, feel at times like a legitimate supernatural horror thriller – so working from source material penned by Frank Miller in his prime should make it easier for Slade to deliver a truly engaging flick.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The pizza-loving Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles​ are prepped to step back into the limelight, with both a new animated TV series and live-action movie on the horizon. So far, both new incarnations of the Turtles are expected to follow the example set by (pretty much) every other upcoming comic book reboot under the sun and return the titular characters to their darker roots – as written in the original comics by Kevin Eastman​ and Peter Laird.

Deadline, however, says that Iron Man screenwriting duo Matt Holloway and Art Marcum are no longer working on the new live-action TMNT movie; now the project is being scripted by Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol writing team Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec​, who also previously worked on television series like Alias and the U.S. version of Life on Mars.

The 2007 CGI TMNT movie also attempted to paint Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael in a more serious light – but so-so critical reception and box office returns left the franchise in a funk once again. Hopefully, the new live-action film will be a fun, action-packed return to form for the series. Here’s some free advice to help: this time, make sure the TMNT movie actually has a better-developed plot than its video game spinoff.

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We’ll keep you posted on the status of both the Daredevil and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot in the future.

EXCLUSIVE: Now that Paramount and Platinum Dunes has set Megan Fox as the female lead in the Jonathan Liebesman-directed live-action/CGI feature Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, they are working on the turtles. First to be cast: Alan Ritchson, who’ll play Raphael. He’ll be coming off playing Gloss, the deadly dagger-wielding male tribute from District One in the upcoming The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Now, the original movie series put its actors in bulky turtle suits, but this one will be more like the performance capture in Avatar, making this a good role. The TMNT reboot is dated for a May 16, 2014 release after it was pushed back to cut the budget to around $125M. Ritchson is repped by UTA and manager Michael Yanni.

The cast and crew are mainly housed at the Best Western hotel in Saranac Lake, but they are also renting some houses and motels in the area, Maroun said. The group will be up to about 80 people at maximum.

The crew has worked to keep most of their purchasing local, using local catering and other local vendors and goods as much as possible.

Big Tupper Ski Area
Tupper Lake, NY 12986

Town Supervisor Roger Amell said at last week's board meeting that the crew plans to spend about a half-million dollars locally.

"It's going to bring a lot of money into the area," Maroun said. "We're glad to have them. We'd like to have more movies in the Tupper Lake area."

He noted that "Ninja Turtles" is the third movie being filmed in Tupper Lake in recent years. The teen horror movie "Recreator" was recorded entirely in the area in 2009. Then Paul Giamatti brought a film crew to Park Street in spring 2012 to shoot a film that was at the time being called "Lucky Dog," but is now referred to on the Internet Movie Database as "Almost Christmas."

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"Ninja Turtles" on IMDb
"That's great," Maroun said. "I mean, maybe this will become the movie haven, too, so we can add that to 'The Crossroads of the Adirondacks.' I think it's great PR for Tupper Lake and the area."

Big Tupper is closed to the public while the film crews are working there, with "posted" signs at the entryway. Jim LaValley, who has close ties to the Adirondack Club and Resort developers who own the property, said recently that there will be security at the mountain to ensure the movie crew's property is safe.

"The public is asked to stay away," LaValley said.

Parts of the film crew came to check out the location in December and have been here working since maybe early February, LaValley said. But the main shooting happens next week.

"It's a beehive of activity up there now," but there will be more next week, he said.

After shooting, they go into restoration mode and put things back the way they were.

Paramount is paying the resort developers, who own the property, what LaValley calls a minimal location fee.

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Not the reason for closing

LaValley said the movie is not the reason that Big Tupper didn't open for this ski season. He is the head of ARISE, the nonprofit organization that operated the ski area for the previous three ski seasons on a mostly volunteer basis. The organization decided last fall it didn't have the money to open for the 2012-13 ski season.

He said the movie had "absolutely nothing to do with it.

"That is circulating around town that that was the reason," LaValley said. "The bottom line is we had no money. ... Our misfortune ended up being our fortune."

He said the closure of the ski area happened to be in the news around the time when the state was helping Paramount find a location, so it caught the eye of the people looking.

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Ninja Turtles

According to IMDb, the movie is set to be released June 6, 2014. Michael Bay, of "Transformers" fame, is the main producer, Jonathan Liebesman is directing, and the only actor listed so far on IMDb is Megan Fox, playing the Turtles' reporter friend, April O'Neil.

Fox, a 27-year-old star who is often referred to as "sultry," worked with Bay on several of the "Transformers" movies.

She may not make an appearance in the Tri-Lakes, though. Village police Chief Eric Proulx said he had meetings with the movie's location management crew about security.

"I asked if anyone significantly famous was coming to Tupper Lake, and they told me, 'No,'" Proulx said.

Proulx said that when Giamatti was in town last year, many locals were out on Park Street to try to catch a glimpse of the celebrity, so he was concerned about the security that would be needed if another celebrity makes an appearance.

The movie crew originally sought out village police officers to work as set security when they aren't on duty, which Proulx said he approved, but he's not sure he has enough officers to make that happen.

"I'm understaffed here," he said.

His understanding was that they were going to approach state police about providing security for the film instead since Big Tupper is located outside the village, but he said that may have changed. A state police officer at the Tupper Lake barracks this morning said he personally wasn't doing any security for the movie, but he wasn't sure if others were.

The film crew is also using the town's golf course for parking and for a dressing room area for three days of filming, Amell said last week.

They also plan to use the course's driving range to land a helicopter, Amell said.

"They wanted to land on the fairway, and I said, 'No,'" Amell said.

Paramount plans to make a $1,000 donation to the town's cross-country ski program at the mountain in return for the use, Amell said.